THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I and the Secretary really appreciate the good
folks here at Shenandoah National Park for their hospitality and their
hard work in making this beautiful part of our country accessible to its
citizens.

Today I had the honor of spending time talking to a group of concerned
citizens about our National Park System. We've got about 80 million
acres of our Park System, with millions and millions of visits a year by
our citizens to take advantage of and participate in the special beauty
of our parks -- all you got to do is look out here.

We spent time talking about our understanding that these parks are
national treasures; that they are fantastic places in which to learn
things, get exercise; that our parks are a way to teach our fellow
citizens about the history of the country. After all, Laura and I live
in the White House, which is managed by the National Park System. Our
parks are important. And the people who work in the parks are
important.

I asked Dirk Kempthorne to join my administration because I know that he
is committed to the National Park System. He's a man from the West who
has been able to enjoy the beauty of the parks in his own home state of
Idaho.

One of the things we talked about is how we can make sure the commitment
that we all think is necessary to our Park System is really honored in
the appropriations requests that we make to Congress.

Our parks will have its 100th anniversary in 2016. And we felt like a
vital goal for this country would be to prepare those parks, to guard
the parks, to conserve the parks, to make the park relevant to the
American people in honor of the 100th anniversary. And so Dirk and I
and others in this administration have come up with what we call the
National Parks Centennial Initiative. It's a bold program that calls
upon the government to do its part, as well as our citizens to become
invested in a campaign to really enhance the parks.

The funding starts with a billion-dollar request over the next 10 years
that I'll send up to Congress. It's really to enhance the operating
missions of our parks. I'm looking forward to working with both
Republicans and Democrats to get this initiative passed. I think if any
member of Congress were to ask a Park Service employee, or those who
know a lot about the parks, our fellow citizens who give of their time
to make sure our parks are vital, they will find out that this request
is a really important request.

Secondly, we're issuing what's called the President's Challenge, and
that is to -- we're asking the private sector to donate up to a billion
dollars over the next 10 years to help this Park System be vital and
strong, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our Park System. And as
they -- fellow citizens contribute, whether it be through foundation,
corporation, or individually, the federal government will match those
contributions. In other words, this is a collaboration of the federal
government and individual programs.

I've asked Dirk, after today, to go around the country and to learn from
our fellow citizens, to learn from the park rangers and learn from the
foundations that care about our Park System how best to spend this
money, how best to honor the centennial that we'll be celebrating in
2016. In other words, we really do want individuals to feel that they
own a piece of this strategy. After all, the parks do belong to the
people.

We believe that we've got a fantastic chance to enhance habitats in the
Park System. Laura, for example, really cares about the bird population
of the country, and the Park System has a lot of habitat -- as do I, by
the way, as much as you do. (Laughter.) But it's a chance to make sure
our Park System enhances bird migratory patterns, for example.

We want to spend time making sure that we enhance educational
opportunities in our Park System through new technologies. The iPod is
hip amongst some of the younger citizens here in the country, people we
want to encourage to come to the parks, so we need to make sure to apply
that technology with educational opportunities, as somebody goes walking
through our parks. We want to talk about -- and we will continue to
talk about expanding park accessibility through a junior ranger program
that Laura has been very much involved with.

We're going to hire 3,000 seasonal park rangers, and that's going to
make the job of the folks who, for example, run the Shenandoah Park much
easier, and more importantly, make the customer service -- in other
words, the citizen service -- richer for somebody who comes and uses our
parks.

We want to upgrade our facilities and historic buildings. We're going
to add and -- ask people in their different Park Systems to become
recruiters of volunteers so that more and more people get involved with
this fantastic national resource of ours.

So, Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you very much for the hard work
you've done leading up to the budget proposal we've made. I want to
thank you in advance for the hard work you're going to do, to travel our
country to get input from our fellow citizens. And I thank all the
people in our country who care about our Park System for your direct
involvement and your sincere concerns about making sure the Park System
is modern and restored and rehabilitated.

I urge our fellow citizens to use the parks. I urge you to bring your
families to the parks. I think you'll find that the people who work in
our Park System are genuinely decent, kind people who want you to enjoy
the great beauty of the National Park System.